tune to enter the war room with jennifer granholm.

it's go time! >>every weeknight cenk uygur calls out the mainstream media. >>the guys in the middle-class the guys at the lower-end got screwed again! i think you know which one we're talking about. i just wanted to clarify.

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>>facts are stubborn things. >> let me kick off our focus tonight on voter access to the ballot box with my point. tonight, we are going to concentrate on one specific aspect of voter suppression, which is the voter id laws. since 2001, in the past year nine states have passed restrictive voter id laws and several others have tried. in texas, who is voter id law was challenged by the justice department in court today, texas classifies its law as an emergency legislation so that they can rush it through before the election. in texas, a gun permit is a valid voter id. but a university-issued identification is not.

hum, wonder who that benefits. the republican argument is that well, everybody has a driver's license or you should have to showed an id to cash a check. why wouldn't you require one to vote? now, that wouldn't be so bad if the list of valid ids weren't so limited in so many of these states. as an example, many investigatorserly people or those who live in cities, people of all economic classes don't have driver's licenses. birth certificates. well 48% of women, those who change their name for marriage don't have a birth certificate with their current lem name in most states, you have to call for a copy of your birth certificate voting rights act declared paying to vote is unconstitutional. some states like missouri set up cash 22s where you can't get a birth certificate if you don't have an id but you can't get an id without a birth certificate. republicans are going to claim, we need to fight voter fraud.

as mother jones has put it, ufo sitings are more common than voter fraud. you are more likely to get struck by lightning or eaten by a shark or struck by a lightning shark with a winning lottery ticket. voter suppression affects very real people in very real ways. in wisconsin, ruthelle frank. there she is an 84-year-old former elected official has to pay an unconstitutional fee to get a birth certificate, which because it was misspelled is going to require hundreds of over other fees. look at her picture. clearly a subversive. right? or in tennessee, 96-year-old dorothy cooper who has voted in every election since she was he will eligible she couldn't register to vote because she didn't have a copy of her marriage license. look at her. >> that's an an arkansasist. or in texas jess could cohen who lost her id

papers in a burglary has to race against the clock to get documents from her birth state of missouri. you can tell she is obviously part of a vast conspiracy. right? there is a conspiracy among those who want to steal the election. these americans have just as much right to vote as you do and i do and barack obama and mitt romney and the koch brothers. but by using this pretension of voter fraud and the weapon of voter id laws in particular the republicans, remember, the party of catherine harris and hanging chad's and bush v. gore the republicans are systemastically snatching away people's rights. as benjamin today. jealous said as head of the naacf, our democracy is literally under attack from within. there is no battle that is more important or urgent than the battle to preserve the battles

for democracy, itself. our right to vote is the right upon which our ability to defend every other right is leveraged. and he is exactly right. all right. coming up we are going to hear about the battle in pennsylvania where 760,000 people could be blocked from voting. you are not going to miss this story. you may need a drink because you are going to get very angry. it's next, and it's only in the war room. the real world and politics collide on "the gavin newsom show". this week: can a futurist really predict the future? find out on "the gavin newsom show". only on current tv.

right by those who gave their lives to for this country nearly 70 years ago.

>> in a texas courtroom today, lawyers defending a new voter id law there made the ridiculous claim that the law is necessary to combat a culture of election fraud. complete bunk. it's the first challenge to the federal government's power to block such laws. texas lawmakers are going to hope -- hoping that it's going to go all the way to the supreme court. it's not just texas. 9 states have passed controversial voter id laws including swing states like pennsylvania. now, tom corbett has signed a 250,000 dollar contract with an

advertising company run by a mitt romney funder to create ads promoting the harsh new laws. take a look. >> you are right to vote, it's one thing you never want to miss out on. this year the law requires that every pennsylvania voter show a photo id at the polls. >> in fact, pennsylvania has nearly 76,000 people who don't have one of those valid ids. under the new law, nearly one in 10 voters could be denied the right to vote. in philadelphia, it's closer to 2 in 10. it's about 18% of philadelphia voters. 93-year-old viviette applewhite filed a lawsuit saying they are not going to be able to vote saying having been born in the gym crow south there is no record of their birth in order for them to have a birth

certificate. in fact african-americans and other typically democratic volters are most likely to lack a valid id under this law. 25% of african americans don't have the proper id. neither do 19% of 4r59inos or 18% of young people and seniors. compare that to the just eight % of whites who don't have the kind of id that was required under this law. you don't have to take it from me. pennsylvania house republican liter mike turside bragged, really, that if republicans get their way, voter id laws will swing the election. take a license. >> voter id which will allow governor rom network win the state of pennsylvania, done: ask. >> finally a little bit honesty amid all of the lies and deception for the latest on pennsylvania voter suppression

efforts we are going to turn to stephanie singer the city's top elected official. stephanie joins us from philadelphia. stephanie, thank you for coming inside the war room. >> it's great to be here. >> those numbers are incredible 760,000 up to that money could be disenfranchised. how concerned are you, and how do you know that the number is so high? >> well i am very concerned, and i should say that i know these numbers because they were issued by the department state. the republican department of of state. and i can't say how accurate they are because, like many other things the department of state is not -- there is a lot they are not telling us. they haven't told us yet how they actually calculated those numbers. >> so, well, let's look at some of the language in the law. here are some of the acceptable forms of photo id. you can have the government issued photo id of course issued by the state, probably

like a pennsylvania driver's license. >> that's right. >> you can have a u.s. passport a military id a student id from an accredited school which is interesting, a long-term care fascinating photo id. now republicans argument it shouldn't be hard to have one of those many forms of id. what do you say to that? >> their own numbers show there are allotted of people who don't have a driver's license. when they were pushing this law, they said only 1% of pennsylvaniaans are without a driver's license. 1% of pennsylvania voters. they kept saying 1%, 1%. en up to a week ago when the secretary of state had the numbers that you quoted in hand she was still pupcally trying to say 1%, but, in fact, it's closer to 10%. and that's just in pennsylvania. that in philadelphia, it's 18%, as you said. and there are other things. the list is very short and complicated and cruel. so college and university students can use their ids if

there is an expiration date but a cosmetology student or an auto mechanic student can't use their id. why is that? >> so give me some examples of who specifically is going to be disenfranchised by this law. >> well, we are spending a lot of times helping americans who were born in puerto rico because, among other complications, pen dot doesn't accept birth certificate cats. if you haven't gotten a new birth certificate in a while, you have to get your birth certificate. so there are different populations are hit in different ways. >> amazing. how was the gop able to get the law passed? was it just a party line vote?

is it a fullly republican legislature? >> yes. it's a fullly republican legislature with a republican governor. in one sense, the part of this law that's trying to disenfranchise philadelphia, what gives me hope is that it's getting a lot of people to think about philadelphia and that we should get the power we deserve as americans, and that means that we need to vote. so philadelphia has not come out to vote in the past the way it can and should. >> so you -- >> that's why we have a cran governor and why we have republican majority on the court, also. he elected in pennsylvania. >> because you are the chief elected official responsible e lex officer in philadelphia, your office is responsible for making sure that every registered voter in philadelphia is able to vote. so for your office how difficult is this law going to make it be to gar anuaranty that that happens? >> it makes it very difficult.

and they delay giving us the information we need giving us the lists of who these voters are, who need id to vote so we and concerned groups can get them to the dmv to get their id they will need for voting. >> you have a time issue, then as well. you only have a few months? >> question. >> that people may all of the sudden be subject to this. you have to identify the people help them get the right id: do you have the resources to be able to do that? 750,000 people is huge. >> no. we don't have the resources in house but there are a lot of groups that are coming together to help out. one of the things that's really frustrating about this law is that it does enforce -- it's an unfunded mundate on us and the state has been -- the cost of the law was grossly under estimated by the republican legislature and the republican

governor, and they are -- they are not helping us. they are not really interested of course not. they've got an agenda on this. they specifically wanted to make sure that they were able to control who came to the polls. what advises do you have for pennsylvania voters who do not have the valid kind of photo id? what would you tell them? >> well i would tell them first of all, to go to votes pa.com. >> that's the state website to see what the rules are and then to go there, they can find a leapt to the penn dot website to find out what they need. i would urge them if they have trouble getth the documentation they need to contact a state rep, a state legislator in philadelphia to please contact my. we need to know who is having trouble and why. >> well, it's a good reason that the naacp is focused on this issue this week. >> that's philadelphia city commissioner stephanie singer. thank you so much for joining us. people i hope you are mad about this because how fundamental can

this right to vote be? it's driving me crasszy. okay there is nothing our digital team loves more than hammering away at an injustice on social media. right now, they have their sites set on pennsylvania. so go to current.com/the warwarroom. then after the break we will look at something else. just how divided is this country? comedian michael black takes us inside his cross-country road trip with john mccain's daughter. but first, mitt romney has more money. but does that really equal more problems for president obama? our political round table weighs in next in the war it's go time! >>every weeknight cenk uygur calls out the mainstream media. >>the guys in the middle-class the guys at the lower-end got screwed again! i think you know which one we're talking about.

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in many ways the fate of the tax cut for the wealthiest americans will be decided by the outcome of the next election. my opponent will fight to keep them in place. i will fight to end them. >> love it. on the campaign front president obama is using the power of incumbency to plates mitt romney on the side of the wealthy and it might be work being a new gallop poll shows that the president is leading among registered voters. not quite as good as likely voters but in 12 battle ground states, 47 to 45%. and then overall, the rests of the country 48 to 44%. that is good news. but another number has the obama war room worried, which is that there is a $35 million gap in june fundraising. president obama's 71 million to

mitt romney's 106 million. 35 million that's a lot of attack ads and jet skis. joining me inside the war room is debt cram democratic strategist ace smith, the los angeles times calls as a the man to fear unless he's on your side. in 2008 he directed hillary clinton's campaigns in california texas and north carolina. and joining us from new york city is political analyst david he is a contributor for the the atlantic and several other publications, thanks to you both for coming back inside the war room. >> all right. >> thanks for having. >> jennifer: great david. i am goal to start with you. because of course the obama campaign is trying to connect with middle class voters but at the same time, romney is at the hampton and tonight at a fundraise never aspen. do you think that romney doesn't seem concerned enough about appearing to sort of amplify the

disconnect between the wealthy and regular folks? >> yeah, i don't think that these backdrops help, rights? so it doesn't help the president if he's launching the pain strategy ads and appearing at a wall street fundraiser and it certainly doesn't help mitt romney to appear in the hamptons among millionaires at the very moment that he is not only living up to the image of sort of a pluto contract but barack crat but barack obama is also focusing on it and making gains and framing romney as the man who meyers you instead of hires you. >> jennifer: totally agree with that. image is everything, i'm sure you would agree ace having done these political ads many time before. this i want to show you because i think this indicates that it is working. so what i have here is again from that sam usa today poll. of the people who were talked to 8% had changed their view,

and the rest of these said it was confirmed your thinking. but of that 8% that had changed their view, 76% of those were changed their view in favor of the president. now, if that's the case, and,, those pain ads, ace have been running in the battle ground states, the strategy is working. do you worry that the obama team has emptied its clip too early? >> no. not at all. as a matter of fact, california is a good test study for this. you know, our political landscape is littered with the corpses of people who tried to run for political office, bill simon, meg whitman carli -- >> jennifer: wealthy business people. >> wealthy business people who believed if you run in politics you don't have to defend your record in business. and guess what, you do. the room any campaign's belief that somehow or another that obama should have to defend his

record as president but they don't need to defend his record in business, it's absurd and crazy and killing them. >> jennifer: so they started early to define him in that way. they are bringing out the faces of real people. david, i mean, i know that you have written about some of these issues in the past. do you think you can't say it enough from the obama's perspective, that you gotta keep drilling once your foot is on the throat of the enemy you continue to press? >> yeah, i would agree also that he hasn't emptied his clip. in fact, you want to define quickly and entirely in a presidential campaign. and so if anything, the president and his strategists have shown some intelligence in the last month or so, almost rove vinnie strategy in taking a message, hammering that message and doing it often. and so i don't think -- >> jennifer: i love it. >> -- he does hurt himself in any way by doing this. i agree entirely. i think that romney is one of the most, perhaps the weakest

modern republican nominee in presidential politics. weaker than bob dole i would argue. and one huge reason for that is his the way one can argue his record at pain capital. at a time, whereas you know, industrial america is -- has really been hit very hard. >> jennifer: exactly. he's the poster child for the deindustrial saying of america. mitt romney is. however, he does have a big advantage with carl rove, the super packs, the 501c3s, 501c4s all of this money being amassed on his side of the aisle. so does that, david and i'll ask you this, can the left keep up? do they have to keep up dollar for dollar? >> they don't have to keep up dollar for dollar. you can spends smartly instead of as often. that said, the money advantage matters. and there is evidence in political science that if you reinforce a message enough it

does have impact. listen, big picture, all of this stuff, when it comes to advertising, only matters on the margins, but presidential elections are often won on the marginses and election will likely be. i will note that it's still not clear, it's true that romney is highly vulnerable because of this pain capital strategy, but when if comes to other polling like who is better in the economy, romney sometimes pulls ahead. there is still work to be done do in president strategically. if anything it is safe to say that what the democrats have accomplished is that they have at least newtized any advantage come any would have from his business experience. and that's something. >> jennifer: that is something. and the fundraising aspect of things, ace, is certainly disconcerting. so today the obama team sends out a sort of urgent email like they have been doing but this one was interesting, because the subject line on the e-mail was we could lose if this continues it goes to say this is no joke. if we can't keep the money race clothes it becomes that much

harder to win in november. do you think that the obama campaign really could lose even if this kind of disparity that we saw in june remains? >> i think they'll keep it close. i got, you know -- >> money wise? >> money why they keep it close. and, remember, the power of being the incumbent president is you can't even put a value on that. let's also remember on that's bane ads it's not as simple as it is in other elections. they are very unique vehicles in the sense that you don't just go on the air with an ad and everything gets redefined. if you get on the air with an ad it gets did he participate baited in -- debated in the cub lick court of opinion. it becomes debated in every newspaper and ad, that's the power of it, it's not just an isolated event happening in tv land it's an event that gets debated in town halls across america. >> jennifer: that's interesting. so the strategy itself gets debated or the content of those? >> all of it. the strategy, do be at the present time. >> part of what's in the either

at the water cooler, town hall meetings, et cetera. so the part of the messaging, in addition to bane and the deindustrial saying of america and how mitt romney represents that. part of the theme, the message is the coke brothers, wealthy et cetera. this week we saw occupy protesters at the coke beach house for the romney fundraiser with a big sign that says, mitt romney has a coke problem or something like that. between the bane attacks and the presentationing it to mitt romney david, do you think that the 1-2 punch of wealth, upper class, plus bane, that he's -- that the president now has game and that the left is going to be at least starting to be energized as a result of that? >> left energized. whether it's the gay marriage announcements or the dream act-esque announcements by this president, i would say the left is now energized.

i would say saw that if you fight this tax fight on the bush tax cuts, one of the impacts of that, which the president announced today is to energize the left. and so the left is energized. it's a dead heat. and we don't know what will happen in the next few months. and the president, i think has found his footing in recent weeks, especially on this bane strategy. but in the past, we should remember that at times he's appeared more pop you lift and pulled back. your viewers will recall how he pulled back on the bush tax cut fight not so long ago. we'll see what happens in the next few months. >> jennifer: well, i am telling you, it's very excited. we have a fight on our hands and we have a fighter on our hands. i am excited about this. ace, thank you so much for think doingdoing inside the war room. david thank you for joining us via satellite inside the war room. up next michael ian black who coauthored america with megan ma gain joins us, i can't even say

it. that's a sentence i really never thought i would say. i still can't butter that word, i don't like the b word, brett ehrlich drops by with some advise later on for the activist in all of us, so funny. today i gave you surefire instructions to make effective picket signs. like what do we want? time travel. when do we want it? it's irrelevant. so go away. this week: can a futurist really predict the future? find out on "the gavin newsom show". only on current tv.

. what happened to george prescott bush. >> no, he was jeb bush's son. >> oh, that one. >> the ricky martin look-alike yeah. >> going in another direction. the direction away from his father.

hershey's chocolate syrup. stir up a smile. if you missed joy behar one week only... >>hey, time flies when you're having fun. >>don't worry because she'll be back. >>where are the lefties besides on current tv? >>joy behar is getting her own show coming to current tv this fall. [ ♪ theme music ♪ ]

jennifer: we are back inside the war room. jennifer gran home. move over james garville and mary madalen there is a new political odd couple in town. are you ready? ta-da. meet left-leaning actor and funny man, michael ian black and right-leaning daughter of republican royalty, megan mccain the unlikely pair crisscrossed america in an rv searching for political common ground. their journey subpoena documented in the new book america, you sexy... and a love letter to freed a.m. michael comes to us from new york. thanks for joining us? >> thanks for having me. >> so you are a comedian with progressive views. what inspired you if you did it, did you ask megan mccain to do the road trip across america? >> i did. yeah. i contacted her over twitter

which is how most things are done these days and i said do you want to write a book together? she said sure. we wrote a book together. >> that's adventurous. toward the beginning of the book, you wrote, almost and quoting you now, almost nobody wants to own the label democrat. even i the liberal on this trip, you said have a hard time saying i am one because i don't know what the dems stand for. did your views of either party change during this trip? >> yes and no. my views on, let's say, conservative and liberal changed a little bit i think expanded a little bit. but if anything my views on the parties, themselves might have hardened. i can more reluctant to call myself a democrat now than when i left. >> why? >> if anything like i probably have become more liberal than i was. it's that the parties, themselves, to me represent

something that feels, at best an akronc anachronistic that are primary concerned about money laund laundering. hope it doesn't sound too cynical. >> a little but i would be surprised if our viewers don't agree 100%. what surprise you the most about megan's views and perhaps those of the other republicans you met? do you have any good surprises? >> the surprise to me was mostly that i felt like i was able to get my head around the conservative world view maybe for the first time. a lot of times liberal look at conservatives and say, i don't get where this is coming from. but haguenging out with megan, i feel i feel like i started to understand that for them, it's about self reliance and independence and having the

feifdom, a loaded word for republicans to do what they want. and they view a kind of small government solution as one way and i would say democrat, i agree with those principles but i also feel like the government has a role in supporting people and in providing the framework for people to achieve everything that they can. >> so but i mean she is really not along party lines in many of her positions. isn't she pro-gay marriage? she is pro-choice? does she really count as a republican? >> well, she is pro-life. i mean -- ah-ha. >> she is very ardently pro-life and one of the things that's interesting about her, and i think about me and about mostly people is that very few of us go right down the checklist of what our parties believe. we are all if a are more nuanced than that. one of the conclusions we came to, which i think your viewers no instinctively is that the reason i think a lot of people are reluck divinity to say i am

a republican or i am a democrat is because in saying that, you are defining yourself by this checklist of ideas and most of us, you know, we are like chinese menus, a little from column a and a little from column b and together, we get a sort of new answered more delicious immediately. >> part of this trip was about getting out of your conform zone and, in your case what? having the opportunity to shoot guns and spend time with members of the military? what was that like for you? >> it -- well the shooting guns part was excellent. i loved it i had never shot a gun before. now i just recommend it to everybody. you know we just went out to the desert in arizona and her brother, who is a former man manneen, just started handing me we hopeon re. i don't know if it was legal or not. it was massive guns. there was a lot of safety involved. he taught me how to fire. it was a gray relief. second amendment. that's a pretty good amendment.

as far as hanging out with the military, that is really revealing and kind of humbling in a way. i have never served. nobody in my immediate family except for my brotherly has served. and so i don't have a lot of contact with that culture. it was humbling. it really it really made me feel even more spreechtive of their work. >> that's cool. i think it's great you have done this. what was the biggest argument if you had one that you and megan had on the trip? >> one of the huge ones was health care. second one was the iraq war specifically and it may be after gallonstan secondarily, and then the third was which songs we should sing for karoake. she went with american woman, which just seemed so trite to me. i was aggravated with her. >> you are too funny. everybody's got to check out the book, "america you sexy umm.

the catholic in me. i can't do it. i'm sorry, mom and dad. anyway, up next i love this the art of the funny protest sign with brett erlich. you are watching the war room. it's only on current tv. it's go time! >>every weeknight cenk uygur calls out the mainstream media. >>overwhelming majority of the county says: "tax the rich don't go to war."

of sununu, you're wrong. mitt romney, you're wrong. we need more teachers, not fewer teachers and more cops and more firefighters that support our

>> okay. in our serious mitt moment today, we looked to his campaign's plan to call the outsourcer in chief ads lies. i can tell you -- he can tell you whaeptsz as loudly as he wants. that doesn't make it so. we got sec documents and stories by mother jones, the "new york times" action the washington post, all to prove it. so seems that mitt's claim that president obama is lying is not surprisingly another mittly. hard to deny the truth, though. mitt of course really does love to try. now, every american has the right to protest, but if you ask brett erlich a lot of folks are doing it wrong. so here is brett erlich with

some helpful hints for the aspiring picketer. shhh! bretts talking now. >> so mitt romney attended a koch brothers fundraiser this weekend and protesters stood outside holding this sign: mitt romney has a koch problem. now, this sign demonstrates a rare phenomenon in the picture sign world known as being effective. now, what does it take to make an effective pigget sign? follow my easy tips. one, check your spellings. either this guy has spelled morans wrong or someone lobotmize the moran family. it might be hard to take him seriously. what does this mean? but i can't start my day without some v 8 splash. anti-immigration folks the word is amnesty, not annetty.

not amensty. it's amnesty. at least hate properly. a good sign shifts the conversation. gay rights have this market cornered. if you don't like gay marriage blame straight people. they are the ones who keep having gay babies. or 3 words that will save the economy: gay, bridle registry. >> or this one, would you rather i marry your daughter? perhaps the best sign focuses the way in which the sign is carried out like: what do went? respectful discourse. when do we want it? now would be agreeable to me but i am interested in your opinion. i am done talking now. thanks for joining us here in the war room. have a great night, and we will see you all balk here